Just got back on Friday from dog-sitting for a week, which was a lot of fun. The dog was tiny (our greyhound would have eaten him in one gulp - okay, maybe two - which is why I went and stayed at the house to dog-sit rather than him coming and chilling with our family), and he was also very well-behaved. Played a lot of fetch and tug-of-war with his squeaky toys.

The coolest part, though, was that the woman for whom I was dog-sitting has a canoe, and when I asked her whether she'd mind if Brian and I took it out on the lake she said that would be fine. So we went canoeing, and then we went camooning (our new word, meaning "canoeing by moonlight"). Camooning is amazingly serene and beautiful, especially the second day we did it, when we didn't start until a bit after eight. We found a little inlet sort of place that had a ton of fireflies in the trees and bushes, and sat and watched them for a while. And we saw heat lightning, which was a tiny bit scary but also very amazing and beautiful. We did not, however, get to meet the monster that lives in the lake which we kept joking about. But we did bring battery flashlight/lantern things which we affixed to sticks at the bow and stern, which made us feel like we looked like we knew what we were doing.

I'm also helping out with vacation bible school, my first time doing so, and it's kind of cool.

And I'm posting after a hiatus of I-don't-know-how-long, so this scattered bunch of thoughts and such will have to do for now, especially because supper is now ready. Oh, but I did start baking for the desert I'm bringing to a party tomorrow.

When I agreed to preach the sermon for next Sunday (well, I had a bit more notice than a week, but anyway) I thought it would be at least kind of easy. I mean, I've been listening to sermons for a while now, I've written plenty of papers in college, and I've gotten up to speak in front of people in any number of classes and even more as a student teacher.

But then there's the aspect of this being church, and so I don't want to get any theology wrong because it's the sermon I'm preaching, and I don't want to bore people or get them upset, but at the same time I don't want to just tell them what they already know, I want to say something, and I want to tie all the lessons together (well, I think I've kind of gotten that bit anyway). In my first draft, I had a decent introduction and a decent rest of the sermon, but they didn't mesh well enough, and I can't decide whether and how to bring the introduction into the rest of it or to get rid of the introduction and write a new one, and what to say in a new intro if I do it that way.

Still, I will get this thing written, and if any of my real life friends want to come and watch as I attempt to preach this Sunday coming up I can give you the info. Or should I start a Facebook event so that it's actually official ;-)

Let's see, what else has been going on in my life? Taking two in person and one online course at the moment, basically to stay on the health insurance (still no job, sigh). I won't go in to the doodle I passed around in tonight's class because I've got the picture of me at least pretending to be the good choir girl as my icon (hmm, no halo, maybe I should go back and add that in...). Finished the game of Baldur's Gate 2 my friend and I were playing on his X-box, so now we've got to decide if we're going to look for the original Baldur's Gate, or to see if the third one's out, or to go back and play again as two completely different characters. I've been replaying Ocarina of Time in my free time, as well as actually watching some TV (gasp!). I blame my brother, who got me into NCIS (and my mom as well, to a lesser extent). Can't think of too much else that's interesting at the moment.

It's been a long day today, part of which was getting home from class last night about 10:30 pm and having to get up at 5 am to get ready and go in to sub in a very crazy classroom, and part of which I will talk about under a cut because it's kind of sad.

( Read more... )

On a totally unrelated note, but something to hopefully lighten the mood a bit, during my computer class I got bored of listening to the same lecture for the whatever-number-it-was time, so I was looking at the news headlines on Firefox to see what kinds of technology news they might have (our professor is a news junky and that class had added a bit to his beginning of the class news readings that he welcomed any of us to bring in any technology-related news we found interesting). One of the articles mentioned a website called We Tell Stories, the premise of which is re-telling classic stories using various technologies, and which seems kinda cool. And through poking around I also learned about something called ARG - "Alternate Reality Game" - which I still don't quite "get" but which seems an interesting concept. Of course, I'm probably waaaay behind the times on this and probably everyone else who might read this and be interested has heard of it, but I'm used to being a little slow (or a lot slow, considering that a lot of the music I listen to was written well before this current century, or at least in a style popular well before this current century, but that's another story).

Anyway, that's enough babble for now. I'm getting sleepy and tired and stuff, which isn't surprising really, so I suppose I'd best stop typing this and go to bed or something.

So I'm probably giving a sermon on April 26, for "Passion and Purpose Sunday." I'm honored that our priest thought of me, but also kind of terrified. I haven't officially said that I'll do it yet, because she just asked me last night and it came as a total surprise to me, but I get the sense that it's something I should do. And hope that I don't make a total fool of myself in the process :-)

Unless, of course, you go with another definition of "total fool," or if I come up with something where making a total fool of myself actually supports the readings and accomplishes what a sermon should....

Thursday-Saturday I'm going to be in Wildwood, helping out with the Diocesan Convention, which should be a new and exciting experience. I've been to the Jersey shore once, briefly, to keep my mom company when she was dropping off my sister at Cape May for the diocesan youth choir camp (to which we basically forced her, practically kicking and screaming, to go - and now she can't wait for next year's). I love the ocean, but I'm not too big on crowds, or driving long distances, so unless I'm going with someone or have a purpose, I'm not likely to just go to the shore.

As for Chloe... we brought her back to the vet again, and it looks like her main problem is cancer near her digestive system. Which means we don't need to worry about Annie, which is a good thing. Chloe also got a couple shots at the vet, one to treat the minor infection she had and one of vitamin B (she was slightly anemic, and it helps with digestion). Since then, she's been coming out a bit more often and had a bit more of an appetite, though still not back up to full. But she seems happy enough, and that's what the vet told us to do - keep Chloe happy - so we'll do that, and see if she manages to gain some of her weight back.

So yeah, those are the two big things at the moment, and now I have to run off to work (I'm subbing at the preschool aftercare today).

At the moment there's two major things (besides the job thing) that I'm worried about - my laptop and Chloe, the cat who ended up being mine even though I didn't want a cat at first. I'll go into the story of the laptop first, mostly because it's more of an annoyance sort of thing and not as likely to upset people, and then I'll cut the part about my cat in case people don't want to see it.

As far as the laptop goes - today, all of a sudden, the screen went a bit darker and it showed that the laptop was not on AC power, even though the cord was plugged in. No matter what I did - readjusting the angle, plugging the cord into different outlets, turning off the computer - nothing seemed to make a connection. It's kind of what happened with my Dell, except that was more gradual and this was just poof, it's not working. I'd rather have gradual; that way I could've prepared. I need to figure out how to get it fixed, and how to afford it, and yeah.

( And now for the cat... )

Let's see, something cheerful to end the entry on, something cheerful - ah, I know. My temperature was normal the last time I took it, so hopefully I'm finishing up being sick (my whole family had and has fevers and congestion). Oh, and Lily (my brother's greyhound) is curled up on the chair where I'm going to sit once I finish typing this on the family desktop, and she's very cute. No, I won't make her get up - I'll just make her share. Which she should do because I was sitting in that chair when she first got up on it, so there.

EDIT: Update on the laptop: Dad looked at it, played around with the cord and the port and his digital multimeter (DMM), and thinks that the problem is in cord right before where it plugs in to the laptop. Hopefully that's it, because there were replacements for sale on ebay and he bought one of those (as he has the ebay account and I don't, though I fully intend to pay him back for it). So yeah, fingers crossed that that fixes it and that's one less thing to worry about...

Originally, this started off as a comment in reply to the comment wolviepris made on my previous entry, where he asked about some of the basic differences I'd noticed in classes and equipment between Pathfinder and 3.5,. Since I hadn't really looked too closely, I started comparing the d20srd to the Pathfinder PDF, and quickly realized that my comments were getting to be much too long to fit in a single LJ comment box, if I remember the character limits. So I decided I had probably better make a whole new post about it.

( Some of the basic differences I've noticed... )

Whew, I think that's plenty for a single LJ entry. Perhaps I'll take a look at spells and/or equipment next.

At one point in time, I ordered something from Paizo.com - I believe it was the DVD of The Gamers. This has the effect that I am on the Paizo mailing list, though usually I just kind of skip over those entries ("Oh yeah, another mass mailing"), but recently one of them caught my eye, a news bulletin about 17 finalists advancing to RPG Superstar: Round 3. It seems that RPG Superstar is something like American Idol or Top Chef, except it's all done via online posts and a discussion board sort of format, and instead of singing or cooking the designers are developing new content for use with Paizo's Pathfinder setting. I've been enjoying reading through some of the entries and the comments, including during my computer class when our group was done with our presentation and rehearsed and other groups still couldn't decide what they wanted their first slides to look like, and I thought I'd take a break to share the link with the rest of you, because it seems like something others might enjoy as well.

Also, Pathfinder looks like it might be worth checking out. I downloaded the Pathfinder Beta PDF which contains the rules (free if you create a Paizo.com account, and since I already have one...). It's based on the 3.5 OGL, but does have some new rules to try and make classes more interesting and/or versatile, as well as a new setting to replace the copyrighted Greyhawk material. Most of the setting isn't really detailed too much in the document - the part I noticed the most was the deities in the cleric section, but I haven't given the system a really close read-through so there could be other information as well.

I kind of wish the snow would cancel evening classes. Not that I really mind being there, but I don't look forward to driving back at ten-something at night in the dark and ice...

I don't know if I've mentioned my Tuesday night class before. It's Intro to Computers, which I'm only taking so I can possibly take a networking course later on. The first two weeks thus far have mostly been "You should work with people from all different generations, look at the different generations here" and "Yay education" and "Yay Obama." At the very end of the last class we did finally talk a bit about computers, when the professor asked us to get into groups and answer the question "Why did technology develop so quickly from the main frame to the Blackberry (or Obamaberry, as he is so fond of calling it)?" The other groups had answers like, "Because it could" or "Because there was demand," while my group's answer involved semiconducters, transistors, and integrated circuits.

Anyway, I think I'll try and prove I know how to use Word by not using Word but using OpenOffice instead - mainly because it happens to be free and have a small-sized version that's on my flash drive. Did I mention that we're working out of the books for Office '03?

I get to play in Saltmarsh today, which should be a lot of fun. The DM told me, "You guys are so screwed." To which I replied, "I'm quite used to it; I played in your other campaign, remember?" I kind of know what's happening, as the other campaign took place AFTER these events and some of the other characters went through this, and were talking about it. But my character has no idea, and I'm working hard to divide my character knowledge from player knowledge. Especially as I'm familiar with the main villian from the other game, and wrote him a couple songs as Zefiryn, which I kept finding stuck in my head as we were fighting him. So I figured I'd better write him something as my other character, Rona, so now I've got a ballad-ish thing to hand to the DM, who will doubtless be amused that I wrote another one. You know, Rona's probably going to have to write a ballad for TimJim as well, when we finally meet him. I should probably write ballads for a couple of the other PCs too...

And speaking of creative works, I probably could use an icon of Rona to put up there as opposed to one of Solaya. At least Solaya's got that right, slightly-worried expression that goes along with "You guys are so screwed." But she's more martial than Rona, who's a bardic priestess of Lydia (pure bard as far as class goes, but she considers her bardic magic to come from Lydia, who is a neutral good Suel goddess of Song, Knowledge, and Sunlight in the Greyhawk setting). I should do an icon with Melanna, too, but she's harder to think of distinguishing characteristics for - I'm not quite sure yet how to do an OOtS-style stack of books. Hmm, maybe I should do her talking to some amorphous bug-creature....

EDIT: Rona is now my default gaming icon. If you want to see worried-Solaya, check out my user pics, or there might be an older post about Solaya specifically.

All Saints Sunday today, and we had our service in the Memorial Garden, and sang "I sing a song of the saints of God," which is one of my favorite November hymns and worked its way into my NaNo last year in a very subtle way. I'm not sure how our church's view on saints fits into the continuum, but during the adult formation program there was one member who talked about being taught "Saints with a big S" and "saints with a little s," the first being those canonized by the church and the second being the people around us in our everyday lives. The hymn's about the second sort, I think.

Our church's annual roast beef dinner is coming up on Saturday, November 15, if anyone is interested. I believe tickets are $12 or $12.50 a person, though the rates aren't in the announcements - the times are, though (4:30-7pm). Anyone's welcome, it's good food. Call or IM me if you want details or anything. I'll stop using LJ as an advertising space now ^_^

Much as I am annoyed by my Chloe at times, there's still some fondness there - she's still part of the family, bratty as she can be when she puts her devious feline mind to it. She's also very good at hiding - okay, normally, but when she somehow slips outdoors and it's dark out, with her black fur and being spooked by the strays outside - yeah.

So I'm more than a little worried about her, especially as it's getting cold out. But it's too dark to look for her properly, especially as she's hiding and running away from us. So the plan is to wait 'til morning and then maybe we'll be able to see her. I'm hoping she gets back to us safe, and maybe a bit more appreciative of what a good life she's got inside with us, the heat, and the neverending supply of food. Of course, we've had her since she was a "mouse bait" kitten and she hasn't been outside all that time, so I don't know that she has a proper set of "outside kitty" instincts.

I suppose the thing to do is wait until tomorrow and see what happens.


EDIT: At around 11:20something, as I was getting ready to go to bed, I got an intuition that I should go check in the garage (we left the door from the outside to the garage open so that if Chloe wanted to, she could at least find some kind of shelter in the garage). Lo and behold, there is my wicked little scamp, perched atop some shelving and looking like she is the Queen of the Universe! Of course, she then spoils the effect by making a piteous mew, "Oh woe is me and all that I have suffered" sort of attitude - comes inside and it's straight to the food bowl. With a detour on the way because she is still quite nervous around the canines of this house. Still, she's back safe, and I'm glad of that!

Just realized the only notification I gave was updating my RSVP on Facebook (is that official enough for you, Chris?) - can't attend Laura's birthday party, sorry Laura! I had already said I was available for game if it happened, before I knew about the party, and since game is happening, I'm already obligated to that.

Happy birthday, Laura, and thanks for the invite, and have a great time!

I managed to somehow (don't ask me precisely how, I'm talented enough to manage this without knowing exactly how, and by the way how do I trade this talent in for a better one) cracked the screen of my laptop. Put it aside for a few moments while I went to look for something, came back, sat down, picked it up to put a flash drive in - (cue internal monologue)"Hey, what are those black splotches? I don't remember going on a website with art, but it is kinda pretty I guess, in a weird sort of way, and I kinda like those lines that look like a web... wait a minute, that isn't a website, that's my word processor... oh crap..."

Nothing else seemed to be affected, and it was kind of pretty - and also kind of in the way of seeing things on the screen. So I brought it into Best Buy today, where yay for me, I bought the year's worth of accident insurance against what I thought my dad would advise. So it's getting fixed now, no problem, the staff was really awesome about it and didn't even make fun of me or anything, and even though I didn't bring the receipt they had my information in the computer and were able to print another one for me. The downside is that I've got two weeks of no laptop in which I have to fight for a family computer, use a computer elsewhere, or use my old desktop (which still works, even though it makes what I consider to be unhealthy sounds from somewhere in the tower, particularly if kept on for a while) - but the upside is that my laptop is getting fixed, and I don't have to pay any more than I've already paid for insurance. This is a point in favor of possibly getting the couple extra years added to the thing, even if the total price of insurance does end up being almost halfway to a new laptop (we'll see; I still have time to consider my options).

So yes, that (and trying to find my way out of the Best Buy parking lot) was my excitement of the week. I did snap a picture with my camera phone of the screen if anyone's interested in seeing what it looked like broken. Oh yes, and I did remember to put my documents and such onto DVD disks in case they ended up wiping my hard drive or giving me a new machine, and the programs I really care about are all (legally) available free on the 'net, so it's cool.

Hey look, I actually remembered I have a LiveJournal... what a concept!

It's been a busy summer, nothing too noteworthy happening, just a lot of working and no vacation or anything, which got to be just a tad exhausting. I really meant to do better at keeping in touch with people over the summer and maybe even have some free time - perhaps next year? However, summer's over now, and it's back to taking random courses to stay on the health insurance as I sub and look for a job. Actually, I'm kinda looking forward to taking creative writing, and Spanish should be useful, so that's good anyway. And Spanish is Saturday mornings, so maybe I'll be able to hang out with people in the some afternoon.

In other news, I've finished all the Phoenix Wright games currently out - now it's just time to wait for Perfect Prosecutor. In the meantime, I'm going to save up for a Wii.

We still have a stray cat and three stray kittens outside, and they tend to get in the way when we're trying to park the cars, silly things. At least they're cute?

So I haven't written an update on my life in a while. I've gone from chasing high schoolers down to get papers and such to chasing two year olds around to get them to stop strangling each other, which has kept me relatively busy. However, I have managed to acquire the two Phoenix Wright games I hadn't played, and I'm slowly working through the second one in the bits of spare time I have so that I can move on to the fourth game and then be ready when "Perfect Prosecutor" comes out (I love my DS).

We've got a stray cat living in our backyard ( and wow can I babble on about her, apparently... )

Other than that, it feels like there's just been a lot going on, but not much of it worthy or tending towards the genre of LJ entries. Perhaps I shall think of something else soon, but for now I think I shall conclude this entry.

EDIT: No wait, one more thing, I got a paper in the mail for jury duty, where I had to fill out a paper and then I'm on-call for a couple days and might have to go in and might have to be on a jury and that makes me just a smidge nervous because it's okay in video games and such to be all "this person's innocent and it was really that person" and what not, but to be part of that in real life... then again, maybe it'll turn out that I'm not needed, or maybe it will be more interesting than scary, I don't know....

I'm going to keep this short and sweet because I want to go figure out what happened to my phone - I think it fell out of my pocket somewhere around the house.

Anyway, busy busy week with finals and flea market and subbing, but I just emailed my last two papers off for my theatre course, so now all that's left to do is sit back and fret about what grades I'll get. Wait, I don't have to do that because I'm only taking these courses for my amusement/to stay on health insurance, so the grades don't matter so much any more - yay! I still prefer getting decent grades, though - I think it's my perfectionistic streak.

I've noticed a tendency to overuse the word "anyway" as a segue. I'm going to have to break myself of the habit, methinks. But that's a musing for another time - right now it's time to hunt down the runaway phone and go to bed. Tomorrow's Pentecost, which in a liturgical sense is the day we celebrate the Holy Spirit coming to the disciples - tongues of fire, speaking in tongues, the whole bit. In a celebratory sense, it's the birthday of the church, so we all have birthday cake. There's a cake for each month, and people sit at the table assigned to them by birth month, and we just generally have a good time. And there's cake. It's yummy. I like to eat cake.

Enough rambling. Cell phone, then sleep. Perhaps I'll be more coherent and less rambly tomorrow. Though I wouldn't put any money on it.

Paperwork's finally going in place, I'm finally getting calls - and my first sub job is as a floater in a high school. On Friday. Eeeep.

I've never done high school from the teacher's perspective before, and it never really came up in our elementary ed classes. So, um, those of you who have any kind of hints or advice for me, that would be much appreciated, because at the moment I'm somewhere between excited and petrified at the moment...

Not much time before I must go to work - will finish looking over wolviepris's monkey-pirate if and when I return home. For the moment, I am barricaded in my room against the invading task force of wasps or hornets. Granted, I only saw one buzzing around, but I heard others, and saw the dead bodies of more, and I was trying NOT to look for the others buzzing around because they terrify me. The thought of staying barricaded in my room is quite tempting, though my stomach's protesting that it really would like me to leave the room and find it something to eat, thankyouverymuch - so going to work's the next best thing, with a Wawa's stop on the way. And they would miss me if I didn't come in. Not to mention I'd be in trouble. I don't like being in trouble.

So I guess I'm off then.